Pat Cashman. From Radio to Almost Live! and Beyond. A Conversation with a Seattle Legend

This episode we are joined by Seattle area TV and radio personality Pat Cashman. 

Pat got his start in radio by creating radio shows that he would broadcast through his parents house via the furnace. Even his grandmother would listen and would have grill marks from laying on the floor listening to the floor vent.

After he started his career in Oregon and Idaho Pat ultimately ended up in Seattle at King 5. Early in his career at King he started working on Seattle Mariners commercials.  After a while Pat started contributing to Almost Live! 

Almost Live! was a local sketch comedy show that ran for 15 years.  Pat shares some great stories about his time on the show.  The Ballard Driving School and Roscoe’s  Oriental Rug Emporium are just two of the skits we chat about. Pat also has done a series of podcast interviews called Almost Live! Still Alive where he interviews everyone who was involved in Almost Live!

Pat does charity auctions, keynote speeches, writing, and hosts a podcast of his own.  Peculiar Podcast with Pat Cashman and Lisa Foster. 

This was truly an enjoyable experience for me to have a conversation with someone who contributed much humor to my life through the years. You will love listening to this episode.

Pat Cashman Episode Transcript

Pat Cashman [00:00:00]:

You know, of the things I’ve had to do in my life and gotten to do, this is probably the penultimate moment being on your podcast.

Todd Phillips [00:00:30]:

Welcome to the Exploring Washington State podcast. Here’s your host, Scott Cowan. So I don’t know if I could do this without laughing, so we’re just gonna laugh through it. Today, I am really honored to have Pat Cashman on as a guest and his calendar must not have been booked at all. I don’t know how we got you, Pat. Just kidding. You were gracious and said yes.

Pat Cashman [00:00:52]:

I don’t even actually have a calendar. So what month is this, by the way?

Scott Cowan [00:00:57]:

What year is it? Okay. So Pat Cashman is my guest today. Pat, welcome.

Pat Cashman [00:01:01]:

Thank you, Scott. If that is your name.

Scott Cowan [00:01:05]:

It is my name. It’s what we’re calling you today. So for the one person that’s listening to this episode that doesn’t know about you, how would you like to be known?

Pat Cashman [00:01:16]:

I would like to be known as among the living currently. Okay. By the time this actually is, produced, I I may not be in that category anymore, but for right now, I’m feeling pretty good. I’m sitting upright. I’m taking nourishment. And, and, this, you know, of the things I’ve had to do in my life and gotten to do, this is probably the penultimate moment being on your podcast.

Scott Cowan [00:01:46]:

The check’s in the mail. How did you get to this level? How did your career start? I mean, I’ve read about you. You went to school in Portland and all these things, but, and then you started doing radio down in Oregon and then you came to Seattle.

Pat Cashman [00:02:04]:

Yeah. Well, it it’s not that interesting, but, I I, I’ve I just as a little kid, I used to do they had a thing called record players when I was a kid, and I had one. And it’s a it’s a rotating thing, and you put these things called records on them. They’re made out of wax or vinyl or something like that. And I would do fake radio shows only for myself just in my house. And then, after a while, I said, well, I gotta I gotta broadcast to more than me. I’ve gotta be a little push out a little further. So I forced my brothers, and I had four of them, to, I would go set up my radio down in the basement of our house next to the furnace.

Pat Cashman [00:02:46]:

And if I put the, record player in the right place and my voice there, you could put your head down on the on the registers, the, the furnace registers around the house, and you could hear it. And, so I’d make my brothers listen to my my radio show. It was low tech, but that was the beginnings. And then I got in I just I was obsessed with radio, TV generally, but radio in particular. I loved it, and I always dreamed that someday maybe I could be in radio and have a radio show. And and so in my hometown of Bend, Oregon, there were two radio stations, KBND, K Bend. Get it? Mhmm. Pretty clever.

Pat Cashman [00:03:28]:

Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:03:29]:

Yeah.

Pat Cashman [00:03:29]:

And the other one was called KGRL, k Girl. And the Kay Bend was the much more conservative, your parents listened to it kinda radio station. They had this syndicated fellow on named Paul Harvey every day.

Scott Cowan [00:03:47]:

Yes.

Pat Cashman [00:03:47]:

And he was very famous at the time. Nobody now would know who he was, but he was great. And, they would play music that your parents would like to listen to, orchestral stuff, Andy Williams, Robert Goulet, stuff like that. But the other station across town, KGRL, k Girl, they played rock music. It was hip. It was cool. Kids listened to it. So after I went through high school and I went to college, I thought, you know, I I’m gonna be a disc jockey, and I got a call from KBND, the clunky parent station.

Pat Cashman [00:04:23]:

And they said, Pat, would you like to come to work for us? I go, well, yeah. Okay. So I I’m on KBND for about two months, something like that. And I’m hating every minute of it because I’m playing music I don’t care for, and I really don’t even wanna play music. I’d rather just gab. But then I get a call from this guy at KGRL across town. His name is Ben Tracy, if you can believe it. Fake radio name.

Pat Cashman [00:04:51]:

He’s the program director at KGRL, and he said, hey, Pat. I’ve been hearing you on, KBND. You sound pretty good. Would you like to come to work over at KGRL? I said, well, yeah. I guess it would be pretty fun. Yeah. He said, let me ask you this. How much you making over there at KBND? I said, well, and and rather than make something up, I told him the truth.

Pat Cashman [00:05:13]:

I said, I’m getting getting $400 a month. He goes, how how how does $425 a month sound? And I jumped at it because money talks as you know, Scott. And so I went to to work at K Girl, then I went to work in a in a place called Ontario, Oregon. Eventually went to Eugene, Oregon. And when I went to Eugene to be in radio, I realized I’m not getting paid enough here. So maybe I should nose around for some other freelance jobs as well. Happened to walk into a TV station in Eugene, K E Z I, easy on the I. Get it? Another clever call letter.

Pat Cashman [00:05:56]:

And, they said, you know, our our our production guy just left today to take another job. So, anyway, long story short, that’s how I got into TV, and I didn’t take the radio job in Eugene, went worked at Eugene for about three years, then to Boise, Idaho, and finally to Seattle where I stayed for a long, long time. And never got into radio again until the early nineties, ’19 nineties. And, then did both kind of both kinds of broadcasting for a long time. And I did commercials. I did, you know, programs. There was a show called Almost Live on King TV that I didn’t have any part of until it had been on for a couple of years. And it was like a hungry animal that needed content.

Pat Cashman [00:06:48]:

And they’re just saying, is anybody anywhere have anything they can offer to this show? Because we’re running out of stuff. And so I came stumbling in and I said, well, I could try and do a few things. And so almost by accident, I got involved with that program, continued to do radio, morning radio at the same time. Then I, you know, got into keynote speaking and doing auctions and, with no clearer, you know, focus or direction at any moment in my life. All I knew is that I loved loved that stuff. And, and as I’m sure, Scott, you’ve observed, people, not all people, but many, if not most people who are in broadcasting or stand on stage or, you know, speak in front of other people, Ironically, they are very shy, diffident people who really aren’t comfortable anywhere else except being in front of other people, but otherwise, are just, so insecure. It’s unbelievable. And I fall into that category.

Scott Cowan [00:08:00]:

I wanna so I’m gonna admit to something that I don’t think I’ve ever admitted publicly because you said Paul Harvey. And For that? Yeah. And it reminded me that as a kid growing up, my mom and dad listened to, I think it was Kommo in the mornings.

Pat Cashman [00:08:15]:

Yeah. Kommo ran And Paul Harvey.

Scott Cowan [00:08:17]:

And it would be Paul Harvey. And about breakfast time, I’d hear that. And then, you know, Koma would play K band music, you know, to me. But as a little kid, I don’t know, 18, 19 now, just very little.

Pat Cashman [00:08:32]:

Yeah. 18, 19 is pretty little.

Scott Cowan [00:08:34]:

Yeah. No, I’m joking, but I Were you in

Pat Cashman [00:08:38]:

the first, second grade then? 18, 19? Yeah. Yeah. You were slow like me.

Scott Cowan [00:08:43]:

Yeah, exactly. I, well, I have jokingly said that my freshman year was the best six years of my life. That has been on a on a bio before for me. But I used to think that the music coming from the radio station was an actual live that the orchestra was in the studio playing. I as a little kid, I was like, how did they get all these bands in there? I don’t know.

Pat Cashman [00:09:07]:

Well, you know, it used to be that’s how radio used to be, when our parents were growing up in the in the forties and fifties. So, they they never I don’t think anybody explained to people. This is recorded now. This is not anybody. So if you what it it’d be reasonable to think that they it was all bad.

Scott Cowan [00:09:24]:

The other question the other question I have though is, so when you started your radio station in your home

Pat Cashman [00:09:30]:

Mhmm.

Scott Cowan [00:09:30]:

And you were, you know, broadcasting to four registers

Pat Cashman [00:09:33]:

Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:09:33]:

In the house. Did your parents ever walk

Pat Cashman [00:09:35]:

We later expanded to five, but, yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:09:38]:

Okay. So you 20% increase. But did your parents ever walk in and wonder what was wrong with their kids who were laying on the floor listening to the radiator? I

Pat Cashman [00:09:47]:

I even got my grandma to do it. And, and then she’d get up and she’d have these marks on her face from lying on the register. Very indulgent. People were very encouraging, but it was just silliness. But it it was Who

Scott Cowan [00:10:01]:

so who inspired you? I mean, who of you know, who were you listening? Was it Paul Harvey that

Pat Cashman [00:10:06]:

got you thinking you wanted to be a DJ? No. Again, these references are so antiquated that but I would encourage people to look up these names. But, one was a guy named Stan Freeburg, and and he was a a satirist. He did cartoon voices and things like that, but he would do parodies of songs that were popular at the time. And, the name is is Stan Freberg. Look him up, folks. F r e b e r g. He was very clever, very influential.

Pat Cashman [00:10:43]:

There were a number of other people. There’s a radio comedians named Bob and Ray that I listened to, and they did silly, absurdist interviews and bits like that. And I don’t know why. I was just attracted to it, and I wanted to be like them and and do and make people laugh if I could.

Scott Cowan [00:11:04]:

Mhmm.

Pat Cashman [00:11:06]:

And so that’s my bent, and, it was my bent. And I so I did I just created in my own bedroom. I’d actually write out the, you know, dialogue, and I try to change voices and be all the characters in these things. And I bring my brothers into the act sometimes. But nobody knows I mean, who knows why people go the directions they go, why you went the way you went it. There are influences of people, things you see on TV, the encouragement of your own parents. My dad was a really funny guy, so that was a big influence as well. And, next thing you know, just by dent of doing it all the time and and, just deciding not this is what I wanna do with my life.

Pat Cashman [00:11:58]:

I didn’t even think of it as a career. Who thinks of a career when they’re a kid? They just think, I’m gonna try to do this all my life. We were we grew up Catholic, Roman Catholic. My mom wanted me to become a priest. And and I thought, you know what? If if I could be a priest, but I could be a funny priest, that would be cool. I’d do that so that I would get up, you know, and say, good morning, everybody. Thank you for coming to Sunday mass. You know, has anybody heard this joke? And I do jokes instead of a sermon.

Pat Cashman [00:12:33]:

And if people would accept that in the congregation, then, you know, that would be a career I could go with. And it occurred to me that, oh, wait a minute, Pat. There’s another thing. You can’t be married. You can’t have a girlfriend. Oh, okay. Well, that isn’t a problem because I’m only eight now anyway, so what do I care?

Scott Cowan [00:12:52]:

Girls are icky.

Pat Cashman [00:12:53]:

Yeah. They’re icky. Who cares?

Scott Cowan [00:12:55]:

So what brought you to Seattle? I mean, other than you were in Boise.

Pat Cashman [00:12:59]:

It was a Greyhound bus. No.

Scott Cowan [00:13:00]:

I A Greyhound bus.

Pat Cashman [00:13:01]:

I was just casting about trying to, you know, get a better gig than the one I had before. And, and I people who may know about King Broadcasting would know that it is especially if you have any years on you, that that was a legendary broadcasting company. I mean, it known known around the nation. At the time I went to King TV, I did not know anything about them. I mean, I just it didn’t mean anything to me. And I found out only after being there, hey, man. You landed in about the best local TV station in the nation. And it was in a major market at that.

Pat Cashman [00:13:39]:

They were doing more local programs than anybody else in the country. And I thought, man, this is pretty sweet. And I loved it, and I was brought in to do produce commercials. But pretty soon, you find yourself doing all kinds of other things, producing TV shows. It was a place where you could expand your repertoire. You know, you weren’t, like, brought in to sweep floors and you were sweeping floors twenty years later. They would advance you if you showed that you had abilities and talents. And, so for me, it was a place I didn’t wanna leave.

Pat Cashman [00:14:14]:

I got I did a lot of commercials there, but and I would get overtures from ad agencies and the like. But I never I thought, this is better than that because I get to do lots of things. If I went to work for an ad agency, yeah, I could write a script, and then I’d hand it off to a producer, and then they’d hand it off to a director and a camera person, and they could but at King, I could do everything. I could shoot it. I could direct it. I could edit it. Got the whole deal. And so, it was a prosperous time for me, in in terms of creativity, not not monetarily.

Pat Cashman [00:14:50]:

But, I just got to do all kinds of stuff, and I learned a lot from really good people, really talented people. And then along the way, King, because they were a programming place, they innovated. And they once said, hey, why don’t we try to do a local sketch comedy show? No no other big market in the country is doing their own local version of, say, a Saturday Night Live. And so that’s where that’s where Almost Live began. I wasn’t working on the show at the at the outset, but along the way, I kinda got to stick my nose in the door, and I started contributing pieces and appearing on camera and things I’d never really thought about doing. I had hosted a weekly horror movie show in Boise, Idaho called Peculiar Playhouse, and we would play the worst movies we could possibly get. And then I would be the host in between a a guy named professor Jasper Farndark. I was a befuddled, not very bright, professor of some fashion.

Pat Cashman [00:15:58]:

And and, we would not only do studio parts for that, show, but we’d also go out into the field and shoot sketches and bits out and about. And it really became a a training ground for me in doing things that eventually I got to do on Almost Live. So, but it again, it was just it was just a blast. And and and the nicest thing about it is nobody was directing you per se. I got a couple of chances to go to Saturday Night Live in my career, and I just knew I don’t wanna do this. I like being, in a market in a situation where I don’t have to stand in line behind 20 other people. If I have an idea for a sketch, you get to do it. Go for it.

Pat Cashman [00:16:46]:

And that that just doesn’t happen. You know? So I I was smart enough, and I’m not very smart, but I was smart enough to know that this is where I belong. This is where I’m gonna get to do way more creative stuff and and not be blocked along the way and not have to fight with other people and get in arguments and and all that kind of stuff and just be an amiable, fun loving, good old boy that gets to do a lot of material. And it was fun. It was great.

Scott Cowan [00:17:15]:

Before we before we because I wanna ask you a bunch of well, I wanna hear more about Almost Live. But before we go there, I’d like to ask you a question going back to when you were doing commercials for King five. Does any commercial stand out to you as one that you are particularly that resonate I mean, that you’re proud of? I mean, is there was there a commercial that you did that you’re like, I’m really pleased with my work that I did for, you know No. No? Okay.

Pat Cashman [00:17:47]:

No. I I it it’s funny to look back at these things now. I was proud of them. I did think they were pretty good. Now I look back at them and I cringe, But that’s all part of growing in your

Scott Cowan [00:17:58]:

Right.

Pat Cashman [00:17:59]:

Your craft. And I was working with the technology we had at the time. One of my favorite things that I got to do was King TV was the broadcast station for Seattle Mariners baseball back in the eighties. Mhmm. And and now we’re used to if you were at all watching baseball, Mariners baseball, you know that every game is broadcast, all a 62. There’ve there’ve rarely been more than a 62 in Seattle Mariners history because you have to get into the playoffs to keep going.

Scott Cowan [00:18:34]:

But Please. I want this to be an uplifting episode. Let’s not bring it down too much. But it you’re you’re absolutely correct.

Pat Cashman [00:18:39]:

But I’m a big fan. I’ve always been a fan of baseball and the Mariners. I’m a true believer every year. You know, I told somebody the other day, I think the Mariners are gonna go to to the World Series this year, if they know people who have tickets for them. Otherwise, they’re gonna be watching it on TV just like the rest of us. But but god love them. You you think about it, Scott. The some of the greatest players in the game have been mariners at one point.

Pat Cashman [00:19:11]:

Ken Griffey junior, Edgar Martinez, Randy Johnson, you

Scott Cowan [00:19:15]:

know, and a lot of hall

Pat Cashman [00:19:16]:

of famers, Gaylord Perry even going there.

Scott Cowan [00:19:18]:

Gaylord Perry.

Pat Cashman [00:19:19]:

Yeah. I mean, and I got to see his three hundredth win, by the way.

Scott Cowan [00:19:22]:

Oh, you did?

Pat Cashman [00:19:23]:

Yeah. I was there.

Scott Cowan [00:19:24]:

That’s that’s very cool.

Pat Cashman [00:19:26]:

Of course, everybody probably says that. But, I mean so they’ve had their players, and they’ve had their good coaches, and they’ve had their moments. I mean, no no team in major league history has won more games in a season than the Mariners have. A 16. And yet, they couldn’t quite get to the World Series.

Scott Cowan [00:19:43]:

I don’t think they got to play it. I don’t think they won a yeah. They they would they lost in the first round if I remember right. Yeah. I think I

Pat Cashman [00:19:50]:

was just Well, they they lost to the Yankees in that weird year of 02/2001 where it was almost preordained that the Yankees, after the nine eleven attacks, would have to win the World Series. It was like a story that had been written that way. But I I’m getting I’m getting off the point here. So I got to, King was the broadcast station, and they only broadcast 15 games a year from the Seattle Mariners. But they needed, as part of their contract, they needed to produce commercials and promotions for the Mariners, and I got tasked with that. I just started at King. And so I I I said, could we do funny commercials? I you know, not just like, come out and watch the team. Big action this weekend.

Pat Cashman [00:20:36]:

I said, can we just do wacky commercials? And so I had this idea that why don’t we do commercials with the actual players as the actors in these commercials? I wasn’t aware of anybody that had been doing that at the time. And so I would, I I would do spots with these players. And of course, most players didn’t want anything to do with it. They said, hey, it’s gonna be a no stupid TV commercial. But there were a handful of them that said, yeah, I’ll do it. So, they were just dumb commercials. One that I was pretty happy with was there was a guy named Tom Pichorek who, if you’re an old time Mariners fan, you would remember him.

Scott Cowan [00:21:18]:

Mhmm.

Pat Cashman [00:21:18]:

And he came on one in one commercial, and and it was and it was a commercial for, what was it about? Jacket night, I think, or something like that. You’d get you’d get a free jacket if you were among the first twenty five thousand people at the ballpark. So but he comes on as if he’s confused about what the promotion is. And he says, hi, everybody. It’s Tom Pacherek here. Be sure to come out to the ballpark, Thursday night for Mariners, funny nose glasses night. And then he puts on a pair of funny nose glasses. Yeah.

Pat Cashman [00:21:52]:

Be the first of 25,000 people to come out to the ballpark, and you’ll get a free pair of funny nose glasses. And then I’m off camera, and I go, excuse me, Tom. Sorry. There’s been a mix up. It’s not funny nose glasses night. It’s jacket night. He goes, what? Yeah. It’s jacket night.

Pat Cashman [00:22:09]:

If you go out to the ballpark, you’ll get a free jacket. So you don’t get funny nose glasses? No. No. You don’t. Oh, great. Now what am I supposed to do with thousands of pairs of funny nose glasses? Oh, that’s your problem, Tom. Yeah. So it was great.

Pat Cashman [00:22:27]:

He did a great performance. So what happened was that people showed up at the ballpark thinking they were gonna get funny nose glasses. They missed the real message of the commercial That they’re getting a jack. And they were upset that they didn’t get funny nose glasses. So what happened was the following season, because of the deluge of, of people who were disappointed, the Mariners decided, indeed, we will have a funny nose glasses night. And so what became as a fake promotion became a real promotion, and that was a highlight at that time. But these players were great. They, they they really got into it, and they were funny commercials.

Pat Cashman [00:23:08]:

And, subsequently, years later, of course, when an ad agency had the account, they said, hey. Yeah. And we we remember those commercials. We’re gonna do funny commercials too. And they have been doing them for years ever since. And memorably, Edgar Martinez, who talked about, having a light bat, if you remember that commercial. He was he was he was charming and and, so I I in my own small way, I maybe had a part in in introducing that idea because I thought baseball was uni an unique sport where players, they’re not wearing helmets, they’re not you know, you can see their faces and that. But let’s develop these people as personalities because they’re because the baseball product itself is not that great right now.

Pat Cashman [00:23:59]:

So let’s make people love the players, if not the plane.

Scott Cowan [00:24:03]:

Right. Yeah. Let’s get them to go see Tom Picharic. They wanna connect with Tom Picharic. Yeah. Mhmm. No. I those were lonely times in the eighties there in the kingdom.

Scott Cowan [00:24:13]:

And

Pat Cashman [00:24:14]:

Yeah. I mean, I remember they would get maybe they they would always, you know, exaggerate how many people were there, but I know that they would get maybe 500 people. It’s hard to believe that they would get so few. I mean, you know, I had a I kind of had an idea that I would show the Mariners, in the nineteen eighties, the cutaway at the crowd and then cutaway now to the COVID crowds last year as being pretty much identical, but for different reasons.

Scott Cowan [00:24:45]:

Yeah. So let me ask you this question. We’ll just stick with the Mariners for a second. So through all the years, you you said earlier you you were you were in the audience when Kayler Perry won his three hundredth game. Any other did you attend any other memorable Mariner games?

Pat Cashman [00:25:03]:

I went to an all star game, the only all star game that the Mariners ever had, and that was great.

Scott Cowan [00:25:07]:

I I was at that one.

Pat Cashman [00:25:08]:

But the greatest thing I ever saw in my life, and I was there, and I’ve it’s you can see it on YouTube. Kansas City Royals were in town, and, Harold Reynolds, was their second baseman for the Mariners at the time. He was on second base, I think. He might have been on first. I don’t remember. But I think he was on second base. And somebody hit a ball almost all the way to the wall, in left field, and Beau Jackson was playing left field for the Kansas City Royals. He he caught the ball.

Pat Cashman [00:25:46]:

I don’t even think he made a catch. It it landed at in a bounce, so it was a hit. And he took the ball at the wall. He was all the way to the wall. He that’s how far away he was. Harold Reynolds is running from second base. He’s gonna score easily. He comes rounding third, and I’d never seen anything like it.

Pat Cashman [00:26:09]:

Bo Jackson throws the ball all the way from the wall to home plate. That’s gotta be a throw of over 330 feet. I don’t know how he did it. And they tag Harold out at the plate. That to me is the greatest play I ever saw in baseball. And, and and I’d also credit the catcher who was a guy named Bob Boone. He’s standing he’s standing at the plate with his hands down like, well, go ahead, Harold. Go ahead and slow down because there’s no throw coming.

Pat Cashman [00:26:39]:

And and so he kinda duped him into slowing down a little bit. That helped. But he tagged him out at the plate, and I thought, man, that is the greatest thing I’ve ever seen. Bo Jackson, arguably the greatest athlete ever. You know, he played football and humiliated the the Seahawks.

Scott Cowan [00:26:56]:

Brian Bosworth?

Pat Cashman [00:26:57]:

Yeah. Brian Bosworth along the way. So that was my greatest Mariners memory ever at a game, for sure.

Scott Cowan [00:27:06]:

Yeah. No. I I the all star game was a lot of fun to attend. Yeah.

Pat Cashman [00:27:10]:

It was. Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:27:11]:

That was that was a lot of fun. That was, and I don’t know if we’ll ever get another one here. I don’t know. Maybe we’ll see. Anyway, almost live. So how did they

Pat Cashman [00:27:20]:

Wait a minute. They did have another all star game. I just remembered. It was the one where Cal Ripken

Scott Cowan [00:27:24]:

That’s the one I went to.

Pat Cashman [00:27:25]:

It was

Scott Cowan [00:27:25]:

the Ripken one.

Pat Cashman [00:27:26]:

Was the most valuable player. That’s right. The the one I’m remembering was gosh. It was so long ago. It might have been 1979, ’19 ’80 ‘8. Oh, so

Scott Cowan [00:27:34]:

it was right when they first first came into league. Yeah. I went to the I went to the Unsafe Gun.

Pat Cashman [00:27:38]:

That’s how old. I even forgot. That’s how old I am.

Scott Cowan [00:27:41]:

Yeah. Yeah. So well, yeah. Because I forgot. Okay.

Pat Cashman [00:27:45]:

Hang on. I’m gonna drink a can of Ensure.

Scott Cowan [00:27:48]:

Okay. This this episode brought to you by Alright. So how did you okay. So you were doing producing commercials and Almost Live was going on and you kinda worked your way in the door, if you will. Yeah. How, because I used to watch that show. So you were the guy? Yeah, I was the guy. I was the one Nelson, or whatever.

Scott Cowan [00:28:17]:

How did you get started? I mean, what what was you know, like you said, you you said because you had a chance you presented something you would get produced and, you know, the skit would be played and all that. But how what was the motivation for you to do Almost Live?

Pat Cashman [00:28:32]:

Well, I just, you know, I love comedy. I was a nerd kid that, collected every comedy album there was. K. People today may not know what comedy albums are because you can see so much comedy on TV now, on Netflix specials, and, those kind of things. So but but, again, these were albums, and there would be names like Jonathan Winters and George Carlin and Robert Klein, and it it it almost didn’t matter. I’d go to the comedy section at record stores, and I didn’t even have to know the name of the person. If they were doing a comedy album, I would buy it because I wanted I I just was immersed in it. I loved it so much and would be influenced by it so much.

Pat Cashman [00:29:20]:

Stan Freberg that I mentioned earlier and those kinds of things. So it was always something I wanted to do, and I always thought, gee, maybe I can write a comedy sketch. Maybe I could do something. And, you know, people, we’re all critics, and we sit and we watch. Well, that wasn’t very funny. I could do better than that. Not, of course, knowing that you can or can’t. But, so I started submitting some things to this fledgling show, Almost Live, that was really only on the air a year or two.

Pat Cashman [00:29:53]:

And it seemed like every year, there would be a newspaper article and and the headline would always be the same as if it was clever. Is almost live almost dead? Because it was always on the verge of being canceled because it was getting no ratings. It was on, I think, at 6PM on Sundays back in the old days, and nobody was tuning in to watch a comedy show at 06:00 on Sunday. Somehow, miraculously, someone pulled some strings and Almost Live got moved to a time slot Saturday nights at 11:30. And they would push Saturday Night Live back half an hour so that the prologue, the intro, if you will, to Saturday Night Live would be this this local show’s almost live. And Mhmm. Almost instantly when we got that time slot, it found an audience. It was half it would change from an hour to half an hour.

Pat Cashman [00:30:51]:

We just spent we had a new host that dispensed with trying to do, you know, interviews with people, and there was no live band anymore, and it was just sketch for the most part.

Scott Cowan [00:31:03]:

Mhmm.

Pat Cashman [00:31:04]:

And we intensely focused on local stuff. You know, leave the national news to Saturday Night Live and jokes about the president of The United States and all that stuff. Let’s just focus on the towns and communities where we all live. Kent, Ballard, you know, Tacoma, what that kind of stuff. And and and people just seem to love it. This is our show. You know? It almost they almost took ownership of it. They’re talking they’re talking about my neighborhood, my my town, and it just it resonated and that’s kinda really even though the show was on for fifteen years, it was about half way through its run that it really caught fire and found its voice.

Pat Cashman [00:31:50]:

And, and then and happily, that’s when I got more attached to it. And, and, again, the thing about it, Scott, is these people were not, they didn’t import people from other places that had been Hollywood Comedy Writers. And, the people who came to write and perform on the show had no such experience for the most part. It started with Ross Schafer, who was a stand up comedian. But for the most part, it was just guys like me that maybe thought they were kinda funny, but they didn’t have any TV writing comedy experience. And so it was like going to school. You learned along the way. I still look at some of the old sketches on Almost Live, and I think, oh my god.

Pat Cashman [00:32:36]:

That’s so excruciating to watch. We it was too long. It wasn’t there there weren’t enough jokes in it. But when you move up, you know, into the nineteen nineties, you think some of this stuff and I’m accepting myself, but some of this stuff from other pea is as good as anything that’s being written comedically for television right now. But that’s because the show got the time and the opportunity for people to learn. And and you can watch its growth if you watch it through the years. And we were all just very lucky to get that chance.

Scott Cowan [00:33:13]:

It was iconic. And you’re right. It was it was so much fun to, you know, watch you pick on Kent. Yeah.

Pat Cashman [00:33:21]:

I mean, Kent I

Scott Cowan [00:33:22]:

grew up in Tacoma, so it was fun to see not pick on you know, when you picked on Tacoma, it’s too close to home. But, no, it was fun to watch Kent or or the I remember something about I think it was the Ballard Driving School. That was one of the

Pat Cashman [00:33:36]:

You had

Scott Cowan [00:33:36]:

to have your That was

Pat Cashman [00:33:37]:

You had to

Scott Cowan [00:33:38]:

have your seat belt out the door and all this, you know.

Pat Cashman [00:33:40]:

Yeah. That was that was one of the their in my mind. I think most people, that’s one of the most memorable sketches. The idea was that, there’s a different way you have to drive in Ballard from everywhere else. And again, most of these stereotypes were pure exaggerations. Like Mercer. We decided Linwood is the town that where every woman has huge hair. Linwood.

Pat Cashman [00:34:03]:

And it’s probably no more true there than than Mercer Island. But but but, you know, you just decide, this is what we’re gonna identify as the thing about this town. And and it just it caught on. But Ballard’s Driving Academy was that in Ballard Ballard has changed enormously since then.

Scott Cowan [00:34:23]:

Enormous. But at the time,

Pat Cashman [00:34:25]:

it was it seemed to be largely populated by very old Scandinavian people. And so if you’re gonna drive in Ballard, you cannot drive faster than about seven miles an hour. And you and you have to weave all over the road. And you wanna have your seat belt hanging out of your car door dragging along the asphalt. And it it it was, of course, abundantly silly, but it was also something that people really related to. And I guess that’s what we all learned along the way is that the best humor is stuff that people can say, oh, yeah. I’m that happened to me. I recognize that.

Pat Cashman [00:35:06]:

That’s a commonality. It’s a bit of an exaggeration, but there’s a truth to it. And if if there if people can’t find a truth in humor, they it just doesn’t work as well. I think one of my favorite bits that I got a lot of a lot of attention for was one, I did this I was walking through Pioneer Square in Seattle One time, and I noticed that there were these retail places called they were orient they were selling oriental rugs. And I noticed that without exception, every oriental rug place seemed to be going out of business. They always had these big banners in front of the store. Last days, going out of business, must move, you know, prices slash beyond belief.

Scott Cowan [00:35:54]:

Lost our lease.

Pat Cashman [00:35:55]:

Yeah. Lost our lease. Yeah. And so I did a fake commercial based on that predicate, called Roscoe’s Oriental Rug Emporium. Again, you can you can type in on YouTube all this.

Scott Cowan [00:36:06]:

I watched that. I watched that be last week, and I brought my my son in here. My son’s gonna be 30. And I said, I’m I’m gonna I’m gonna have Pat Cashman on. He’s like, who’s that? I go, oh, no. No. No. You gotta watch this.

Pat Cashman [00:36:19]:

My own kid says who’s that, so don’t blame yourself.

Scott Cowan [00:36:23]:

And so I made him watch this and he was he laughed and he’s like, this is great. So, I think based on my other conversation with him, he’s been out watching other almost live YouTube show, you know, he’s so you know, it’s that one I was gonna bring that up, so I’m laughing because you brought brought I No.

Pat Cashman [00:36:41]:

Thank you.

Scott Cowan [00:36:41]:

I just that one’s every bit as funny as anything I might have ever seen on Saturday Night Live. No. If not well, let’s be fair. It’s more funny than most everything I saw on Saturday Night Live for a long time. That’s a great piece.

Pat Cashman [00:36:55]:

Thank you. That’s very kind of you. Yeah. It but it I I always bring I bring that one up as an example of something that was that’s relatable because it it it’s also true. They always all they always do seem to be going out of business. And so I just I just took that and then exaggerated from there. And, again, a lot of this stuff, if anybody’s interested enough, you can type my name in or just almost live, into a YouTube window. And there’s a guy named, George Buford that has religiously recorded every Almost Live rerun through the years, and he cuts them down and puts all these bits on YouTube.

Pat Cashman [00:37:37]:

So it’s a everything pretty much that ever happened on that show is on YouTube, thanks to him, not thanks to anybody who actually was part of the show.

Scott Cowan [00:37:47]:

So also on your so on your website, you mentions, you were doing work with Bill Nye, the science guy.

Pat Cashman [00:37:55]:

Yep. Yep. Bill was one of the original writers on Almost Life. That’s where he came from. He was, by day, he was an engineer for a company called Sunstrand, which was a division of Boeing. And and so Bill’s science bent comes from him being a really bright science guy, and an engineer. So he’d come to Almost Live and he you know, where everybody else is talking about, hey. I got an idea for a sketch.

Pat Cashman [00:38:22]:

Bill would be saying, you know, I read an interesting article in Science Magazine yesterday. And so the story is that one time, Almost Live in its early days would bring in these b b level actors and secondhand comics and stuff. Now they had some big big comics just starting their careers that were on Almost Live as well. Jerry Seinfeld, Ellen DeGeneres, Paula Poundstone, Dana Carvey. They, you know, they were in town to work at a comedy club, so they would, you know, they’d come and be on Almost Live to promote their shows. But, they had somebody that canceled on them at the last moment. Almost Live did. And so they’re sitting around the writer’s table and saying, oh my god.

Pat Cashman [00:39:10]:

What are we gonna do to fill that segment? And somebody says, hey, Bill. Bill Nye, you you, you like talking about science. Do you think you could do, like, an experiment on television? We could make that a segment of the show,

Scott Cowan [00:39:25]:

like an eight minute deal? Bill said, yeah.

Pat Cashman [00:39:28]:

I guess so. And then spontaneously some yeah. And we’ll call you, I don’t know, Bill Nye the Science Guy. Yeah. It rhymes. What do you think of that? Oh, okay. I’ll try it. And so that’s where Bill Nye the Science Guy was born.

Pat Cashman [00:39:43]:

I think somebody immediately recognized this would be a great regular segment of the show. And and so he started doing that, and that led, of course, to Bill Nye the Science Guy as a TV show on Disney, and I was tapped to be the announcer for that show for its, I think they did a hundred episodes of it, and, and then appeared on it and and did some writing for it as well. So that’s where Bill got his start. And then rather than disappear after his kids show stint ended, He kept at it and kinda reinvented himself and became a little more adult oriented. And, I mean, he’s about as iconic as anybody in pop culture these days. Huge huge success story. And that this is the great thing about Almost Live. That show was a great springboard for a lot of folks.

Pat Cashman [00:40:41]:

Tracy Conway is a keynote speaker. Bill Stainton is a keynote speaker. John Keester, you know you know about, of course. And, and, a guy named Joel McHale has been very successful in Hollywood and in movies. And, you know, there have been some flops like me, but for the most part, people got got really vaulted into some wonderful opportunities that to a person they will admit it would have not happened for them if it hadn’t been for the start they got on Almost Live.

Scott Cowan [00:41:14]:

So then after Almost Live ran its course, fast forward a few years, you did the two zero six.

Pat Cashman [00:41:20]:

Yeah. It was another TV show, kind of a kind of a and I got to do it with John Keester for a spell and with my son, Chris, who was really the driving force behind the two zero six. We later added some other markets. It was another sketch comedy show, ran very late at night. But we were able to add Portland, Spokane, Medford, and Eugene. So it became more of a regional program, and we changed the name to Up Late Northwest. But, again, it was much of the same, making fun fun of local neighborhoods with some new realities now. Things like, the politics had changed, the demographics had changed, the, marijuana was now legal, you know, all those kinds of things.

Pat Cashman [00:42:06]:

And they all became fodder for new directions, in in comedy. People have always asked me, could Almost Live be resurrected again someday with some, obviously, new people in it? And some people say, nah. Nah. Seattle and the Northwest has changed too much. It’s too it’s too divisive now. People are, you know, they’re angry. They’re the local politics is all screwed up. And but I I think, no, those are all opportunities for comedy.

Pat Cashman [00:42:38]:

They’re not they’re not obstructions to comedy. So, yeah, if someone ever wants to pick up the mantle and try and do it again, good luck. The two zero six show was not done at King TV. It was on TV, King TV, but we produced it ourselves. And I think that’s the way you have to go forward now. You have to find, supporters and advertisers by yourself and then offer it Mhmm. To TV stations because their their budgets no longer, are structured to support that.

Scott Cowan [00:43:13]:

So I’d yeah. I guess I’ll go back because you you mentioned I should’ve asked this before we jumped off of Almost Live. But to put it into reverse, go back to Almost Live, I’ve read about Saturday Night Live’s writer’s room and how they you know, it takes a long time for things to get done there and all that. But Yeah. What was it like for Almost Live? How much time did you guys have to put together these episodes? I mean, did you really just do it within a week? Or

Pat Cashman [00:43:39]:

Yeah. Yeah. Pretty much. You know, they, and and we tried to keep it topical too. So what was happening that week would would

Scott Cowan [00:43:47]:

would be

Pat Cashman [00:43:48]:

front and center. Some of it, you could handle in the opening monologue, and and I and I would do these things called cold opens, where I would deal, either with the voiceovers. I did a lot of voiceovers and lip sync on old film and cartoons and things to talk about local issues and Right. Things like that. And you can see a lot of that on YouTube as well. But, yeah, we would basically do it within a week. We had the whole summer off. You know, we’d be in reruns all summer long.

Scott Cowan [00:44:21]:

Mhmm. And

Pat Cashman [00:44:21]:

you would think, oh, boy. That’s a great opportunity to really, you know, build up a stockpile of bits for the next season. But we really didn’t get much done in the summertime. We I think most people would admit we mostly goofed off and stuff like that, but we we also knew that, you know, something that might be really funny in July wasn’t gonna be funny in necessarily in September. So we wanted to keep it current and as topical as we could, and and that was part of it. But, yeah, it was written within a week. They I did, local radio at various stations during that time of Almost Live. So I would be waltzing into the station, and this was on purpose, as long after the writers meeting as I could, so I didn’t have to take part in it because I found them excruciating.

Pat Cashman [00:45:15]:

And I didn’t like I didn’t like pitching my material. I wasn’t good at it. I just knew, that I I had an idea and I knew I could make it work. And after you’ve done something for a while, people tend tend to trust you and say, well, if you think it’ll work, it doesn’t sound very good to us, but let’s see what happens. So that was again, I compared it to, like, if you had worked at Saturday Night Live or in Hollywood. It wouldn’t work that way, and you wouldn’t nobody would give you that kinda rope. But but I I loved it. I loved it.

Pat Cashman [00:45:47]:

I got that kind of, license to take my sweet time and work semi independently. People ask me sometimes, they say, what do you like best, TV or radio? And perhaps surprisingly, it’s radio. It it was always radio because radio was live. It’s spontaneous. You don’t work from scripts for the most part. You invent things in the moment. It’s based on the morning’s news. I did mostly morning radio and talk show talk shows.

Pat Cashman [00:46:19]:

I do characters and things. And once in a while, I would stumble across something that I thought this this could work on TV too, that Roscoe’s Oriental Rug Imporium is the example. It started as a radio bit, and then I thought, I could do this on TV too. So the wash between the two was really a great great place, for me. So I was I was almost constantly thinking of bits and opportunities and news. What where could I go with this? What could we say about something? There was a incident in the news. Sometimes you know you have to make a comment about something, but you don’t know given the exigencies of local television especially, how can you keep it within the realms of taste, or what you perceive to be taste? And I’ll try to be as delicate as I can here, but there was a guy that in it happened in Enumclaw, and there was a case where a fellow, was trying to have, relations, shall we say, with a horse. And, and so it was a big news story at the time.

Pat Cashman [00:47:36]:

And we were trying to think, what we gotta do something with this story, but what can we say that just won’t make people, you know, turn their TVs off in disgust? Because it’s a story of bestiality for crying out loud. So the idea was, let’s just have in the middle of Jon Keester’s monologue, we have two of our interns come out wearing a horse suit. They just walk in one of those clunky old one guy’s in front, the other guy’s in the back. They come out dressed as a horse, and they come out and and then, you know, Keester just looks over and goes, oh, no. We’re not doing that joke. No. We’re not doing it. And then they they leave they leave the stage.

Pat Cashman [00:48:18]:

So you haven’t really done a joke, but you’ve but you’ve

Scott Cowan [00:48:22]:

Done a joke.

Pat Cashman [00:48:23]:

You’ve addressed it.

Scott Cowan [00:48:23]:

You’ve made the statement.

Pat Cashman [00:48:24]:

Yeah. So sometimes you would do that kind of thing to say, yeah. We’re aware of this story. We should but we just aren’t going to go where you think we’re gonna go. So

Scott Cowan [00:48:36]:

Oh my gosh. So you you you self deprecating humor, you know, you you you give kudos to a lot of your cast members doing keynote things. But you’re you’re doing a lot of stuff too. You’re you’re not just sitting around, you know No. Although you did say the other day, you’re sitting around eating bonbons and watching soap operas. You did admit that. But, no, you’re doing other things.

Pat Cashman [00:48:57]:

Yeah. I was lying about that. I’m I’m just eating the bonbons. I’m not watching the soap operas.

Scott Cowan [00:49:03]:

No? Okay. I would’ve Okay.

Pat Cashman [00:49:05]:

No. I I I get the chance to do keynote speaking. I’ve I’ve done I do charity auctions these days. Obviously, a lot of that has been hampered by, you know, recent developments, at least recent as we’re recording this, where you they can’t just have crowds of people gathering in the traditional ways. I’ve done some virtual, events and things. That’s just not the same, of course, without the feedback from live audiences, but you do what you can. But it’s starting to build back again. I don’t know how much longer I’ll keep doing it.

Pat Cashman [00:49:40]:

I’m also I do a lot of writing. I I’ve written columns for several newspapers, and I’m struggling to write a book or two. But I guess that’s fundamentally if I could say I have an occupation, it would be writer. But then you write for TV, you write for radio, you you write for keynote speeches, and and and all that kind of thing. But it’s all part of just what what is inside of you and what drives you, and it’s different for everybody else. I remember one time, I we my we had a house where we had a horror we had a septic tank, and it was it was a disaster. It was backed up. None of the toilets would work.

Pat Cashman [00:50:29]:

It was horrible. And we called out in desperation, and a guy shows up at our house, and he’s and we say, can you possibly figure out where the problem is? So he goes out in our yard. He’s digging around. He’s got shovels, and we’re looking out the window once in a while. He’s out there for hours. And finally, we get a knock at the door. We open it, and here’s that guy. He’s his clothes are speckled in stuff.

Pat Cashman [00:51:00]:

His even his face, you know. And he’s smiling big, and he said, I fixed it. And I remember thinking in that moment, this guy is a hero. You know? He’s never gonna get featured. He’s not they’re not gonna build a statue to him. They’re not gonna give him an award, but he should get one. And I I it just made me realize, we’re on this planet together. There are people that have skills that we really need.

Pat Cashman [00:51:29]:

You know, this entertainment, doing TV and radio stuff is it’s fine. But it will we could get along on this planet without that, but we need people who can do certain things that they they’re born to do. They’re talented at it, and thank god for them, or we’d be just a big old mess on this planet right now. So I just my admiration for that guy was over the top, and I thought, god. I’m I I cannot hold a candle to this guy’s talent in his particular endeavor.

Scott Cowan [00:52:03]:

But I’m gonna offer you though, so when that guy I get it. And I could tell you other stories on the same topic, but we won’t go there for this episode. But that thing, that guy does his job. Yeah. He does it well. He solves your problem.

Pat Cashman [00:52:17]:

Yep.

Scott Cowan [00:52:18]:

He’s speckled. But when he goes home and he wants to relax and unwind and maybe forget about his job, having someone to entertain him on the television or on the radio is highly valuable too. Yeah. Maybe. Yeah.

Pat Cashman [00:52:33]:

I guess that’s you could make that choice. You gotta look

Scott Cowan [00:52:36]:

at it that way. Sure. You you you serve a purpose to let people unwind. Yeah.

Pat Cashman [00:52:42]:

Well, that’s

Scott Cowan [00:52:43]:

We don’t take ourselves so seriously.

Pat Cashman [00:52:45]:

That’s a generous way to put it, Scott. I think and I think you’re right, but, but the point is everybody can’t be doing the same thing. We need every we’re just on this giant we’re a team of humans, not to get too precious about it. But, I mean, he he’s every bit as important and fundamental Yeah. As the president of The United States. Let’s face it. We gotta have these folks. We gotta have everybody.

Pat Cashman [00:53:13]:

And and they should all be valued. And so, you know, on a show like Almost Live or my radio show where you would say, well, what you do all day long is make fun of other people. Not really. We’re all having fun together, I think. And and Mhmm. That’s that’s really what what is going on here. And, you you know, I just I’ve never met somebody. I bet few people, I should say, that don’t like a little being jostled a little bit and having a little bit of elbow in the rib because

Scott Cowan [00:53:47]:

Mhmm.

Pat Cashman [00:53:47]:

Guess what? You’re a goofball too. Just I’m as big a goofball as anybody. How did you get start

Scott Cowan [00:53:55]:

let me ask you. So you’re you’re doing auctions. Are you are you doing the whole auctioneer thing, you know, going, you know, the I can’t do auction speak, but, you know, are you actually

Pat Cashman [00:54:05]:

Yeah. I’m trying I’m I’m I’m I’m not the greatest practitioner in the world, arguably. I I’m I’m sure I’m not. But I I, you know, I’ve I’ve learned how to do the, the rapid pattern and that sort of thing. The way I approach an auction, though, and the way I try to sell it to people if they’re dumb enough to hire me, is that is that it yes. You wanna raise a lot of money. Absolutely. That’s the fundamental thing you’re trying to do.

Pat Cashman [00:54:32]:

But you want people who are there to be able to say at the end of the light, damn, I had a good time. I laughed a lot. I had a lot of fun. I’m coming again next year, and I’m gonna bring my millionaire friend with me. You want it to be I think of it more as a theatrical sort of experience than than, like, you’re going to a, you know, a catalog auction or something like that. I want people to have a good time, feel included. I I run around the whole room. I don’t just stand up on stage and and engage people, sit down at their table and goof with them and that sort of stuff.

Pat Cashman [00:55:09]:

And the the, you know, the effect of that is that, guess what? You still raise a lot of money. Maybe you arguably even raise more because people are not sitting in the back of the room falling asleep, waiting. How long is this gonna go on? When can I go home? Right. So the those things do relate to each other. And let’s face it. Most people, or many people have not been to that many auctions, and they can’t understand what a fast auctioneer is even talking about. So I try to keep it, you know, as as conversational as I can while having having fun at the same time.

Scott Cowan [00:55:46]:

You left an open loop when you said you’re writing a book. Put you on the spot. What do you what what’s the book?

Pat Cashman [00:55:55]:

I What do

Scott Cowan [00:55:55]:

you what’s it gonna be?

Pat Cashman [00:55:56]:

It’s the way I read books. I have, like, 10 books I’m reading at the same time, and I have, like, 10 things I’m writing at the same time. Okay. Some are novels. Some are, more more real life sort of things. None none of them are close to fruition yet, but it it’s a good exercise, and and it it makes your mind open to observational stuff. I’m always writing things down that I note, something that’s funny in a TV commercial. And I one way I get to express a little bit of it is doing a couple of different podcasts.

Pat Cashman [00:56:30]:

One I do with an old radio partner of mine called Peculiar Podcast. You might have remembered earlier I referred to a thing called Peculiar Playhouse. So I kinda borrow borrowed that name. Peculiar podcast is a lot like my old radio shows. We just talk about life, something you overheard, something that happened to you at the store, a weird telemarketing phone call. You got all the things that everybody experiences every day, and we try to do it with fun and humor, talk a little bit about politics. I try not to go there too much. Obviously, some things that get me worked up, like everybody gets passionate about things, and you just can’t contain your your either amusement or anger at something.

Pat Cashman [00:57:14]:

But that’s what that one’s about. And then I do in another podcast, started about, a year ago called Almost Live, Still Alive, where I Mhmm. Where I have caught up with everybody, that had anything to do with Almost Live, that TV show, and just one on one interviews with them. All the cast members, the writers, now we’re talking now I’m talking to producers. And I really wanna talk to the people that shot, the camera people, because they, as much as anything, were the creators of the show. It’s one thing to write a script, but then how is it interpreted? How is it shot? How is it edited? That’s all part of the writing process as far as I’m concerned. And it’s been fun. It’s been well received.

Pat Cashman [00:58:01]:

And, I’m happy to say that the title was conceived because, happily, all those people are still with us, you know, which is kinda remarkable. If you look at the list of Saturday Night Live, people, there’s a lot of them that that checked out, and so they’re not around anymore for various reasons. So as long as they’re still on this side of the turf, I’m excited to talk to them. And and it’s funny to compare notes on stories that we all thought we knew, everybody’s interpretation of particular moments in the show or what happened behind the scenes. Sometimes it’s a little different. Sometimes it’s a little even a little bit chippy.

Scott Cowan [00:58:44]:

You know what I’m saying? You know what? I I never told him this, but I didn’t like the way, you know, he combed his hair or

Pat Cashman [00:58:49]:

what whatever. And and so it that’s been fun and revealing, for people, because the show, as a as an everyday production, ended twenty two years ago almost, even though it reran for another twenty years after it was over. That’s a long time ago, and memories are memories are hazy.

Scott Cowan [00:59:11]:

Okay. I’m gonna wrap this up. I’m gonna ask you two questions. I’m gonna circle back to something you said earlier, and then I’m gonna and spin it. Okay.

Pat Cashman [00:59:19]:

Alright.

Scott Cowan [00:59:19]:

So you mentioned when you were a kid, you went to record stores and you bought comedy records.

Pat Cashman [00:59:24]:

Yep. Well, I stole a lot of them, frankly.

Scott Cowan [00:59:27]:

Okay.

Pat Cashman [00:59:27]:

Alright.

Scott Cowan [00:59:27]:

Well, so that statute of limitations, it’s safe to admit that. You’re not getting in trouble. And that record store is probably out of business because Yeah. Well, it wasn’t profitable thanks to you stealing the company.

Pat Cashman [00:59:36]:

Although I’ve read now that that discs are are outselling CDs now. It’s switching back the other direction again, which is cool.

Todd Phillips [00:59:46]:

Do you

Scott Cowan [00:59:46]:

have an all time favorite comedy record?

Pat Cashman [00:59:51]:

I guess yeah. I probably got several of them. My favorite, I think I mean, I love Jonathan Winters so much. He just killed me. He I don’t know if you ever remember the sketch he did. It was called the great white hunter. And he had he had these guys, out out in the field. They’re in Africa.

Pat Cashman [01:00:18]:

They’re going on a safari. And and I I don’t remember it exactly, but one guy saying to the other,

Scott Cowan [01:00:26]:

I I well, who’s gonna who’s gonna

Pat Cashman [01:00:29]:

be our our guide on this hunt?

Todd Phillips [01:00:31]:

Well, they’re going to have Tom, who as far as I’m concerned, Tom is the greatest white hunter of all time.

Scott Cowan [01:00:41]:

Yeah. I’m looking forward to meeting him. Is he gonna show up pretty soon?

Todd Phillips [01:00:47]:

Oh, yes. Here he comes now. Tom, we’re over here, Tom.

Scott Cowan [01:00:50]:

Oh, boy. I can’t wait to meet him. And then Tom walks

Pat Cashman [01:00:53]:

up, and Tom goes, hi, guys. How’s it going? Jeez. It’s a nice hot sunny day.

Todd Phillips [01:01:03]:

Are we, Tom, are we going after lions or elephants?

Scott Cowan [01:01:09]:

Oh, heavens no. I thought we were going to go after

Pat Cashman [01:01:12]:

flamingos. Well, that was the basic bit. And and Oh my gosh. And that’s like in the sixties. I never heard anybody, do a a character that, of course, now you realize he’s doing some sort of, imitation of what we would call today a gay guy, but nobody would do something like that in the sixties. But Jonathan made it funny, but also inoffensive. And I just found it enormously funny in those days. The characters he created were real seemed like real people, and I love that album.

Pat Cashman [01:01:48]:

But to your question, my all time favorite comedy album is a live album by Don Rickles. It’s called Hello, Dummy. And if you listen to it today, and you can listen to the whole album on YouTube, I couldn’t believe the stuff he was getting away with. And this had to be forty, fifty years ago. Yeah. You know, poking fun at race, at at racism, relationships, politic I mean, he was so out there in his insults, but he did it in a way that he got away with. And no I just I still find the album, stunning in its, his skill to to pull it off in front of people at a time when everybody was kind of on tender hooks. I mean, it was just during the Vietnam War and, protests and feelings were very raw, and yet he was getting out there on stage and doing this stuff.

Pat Cashman [01:02:50]:

That to me, I think, might be my favorite comedy album, which is funny because that’s the kind of comedy I could not do myself. I think I’m more attracted to comedy that is not like my own because I’m thinking I think a lot of the times, my gosh. I I love currently, I love, Norm Macdonald.

Scott Cowan [01:03:10]:

Yeah. That was my second question was Yeah. Now, nowadays.

Pat Cashman [01:03:13]:

And I I listen I listen to Norman. I think I I man, he is just fearless. I’m not fearless. He is, and and I like fearless comedy. I like to admire it, even as I believe. I I just be because of the way I was brought up or whatever, I can’t do it myself, but, man, does it make me laugh and laugh hard.

Scott Cowan [01:03:37]:

K. Well, before I let you go, first off, again, thank you so much for making yourself available. But where can people find more about you? Listen to your podcast and all of that. I mean, don’t send them to YouTube. Where can people go to find you?

Pat Cashman [01:03:55]:

Well, if you ever go by the King County Jail, I’m I’m there on the weekends. They will let you visit. We can’t visit for very long, and we can’t actually touch each other, but through a window, we no. Seriously, I do, I do auctions from time to time, as I said. I’m lucky enough to get to do keynote speaking, around the Northwest and sometimes even in other states. Couple years ago, I went to Vermont and Texas. Oh, wow. Okay.

Pat Cashman [01:04:31]:

And, and I’m lucky enough to get to do podcasts like yours. But, again, my podcasts are peculiar podcast Com. It may be an acquired taste for you, but it’s been going on. I thought we’d been doing it for a couple years. And my sidekick, Lisa Foster, said, no. Actually, we’ve been doing this for more than eight years. I couldn’t believe it. Oh, wow.

Pat Cashman [01:04:52]:

Could not believe it. Wow. So there’s some

Scott Cowan [01:04:54]:

Okay.

Pat Cashman [01:04:54]:

Some 250 of those. And then, it’s a combination of conversation, music, sound effects, and, you know, you might find it appealing, maybe not. And then as I said, if you’re an Almost Live fan or you just were intrigued by the show and what was what it was all about, Almost Live, still alive, like it’s one word, almostlivestillalive.com. And, there’s, I don’t know, maybe some 20 episodes right now, including everybody. Bill Nye is on it, Joel McHale, Nancy Guppy, Tracy Conway, John Keester, and and they’re they’re deep dive interviews. We spend, you know, about as long as you and I have talked today with these folks, and we get to find out what they’re up to now and what they were thinking at the time, how they got to be on the show, where they came came from, and so on. So I it’s it’s been fun to do, you know, and I hope they work.

Scott Cowan [01:05:54]:

They do. I’ll just leave it with that. They do. So, thank you so much, Matt. Thanks, Scott. This has been a lot more fun for me than it’s been for you, I’m sure. But I’ve you’ve been kind and gracious, and Wow. I really appreciate it.

Pat Cashman [01:06:08]:

Well, you’re, awesomely kind to ask me to do this. And we have a mutual friend named Raymond Hayden, and he’s the one who connected us together. Right. Ray Raymond is, I I don’t really need to call him out here, but he is a deeply troubled individual. And I think you and I, if we could do an intervention, that would

Scott Cowan [01:06:31]:

be that would

Pat Cashman [01:06:33]:

be good. He’s strong. So we’d probably need about 15 of us guys to do it because he’ll still be able to fight most of us off. But in the long run, it’s gonna be better for him. I’ll just leave it at that.

Scott Cowan [01:06:47]:

We’ll we’ll talk after that. We won’t we won’t tip our hand. We’ll we’ll plan this secretly. Okay. Thank you.

Pat Cashman [01:06:52]:

Alright. Thanks, Scott.